The Copper Conspiracy

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The Copper Conspiracy was a Dandridge story, running from 2000AD Prog 1824 to Prog 1831. It was written by Alec Worley, with art by Warren Pleece and letters by Ellie de Ville.

Synopsis

Part One

The story opens with Miss Blake being questioned by detectives about the theft of the Blade of Oberon by and from Shelley.

Three robotic 'coppers' trace Dandridge's journeys around the Mediterranean before catching up with him at a Monte Carlo hotel where he is partying with twenty Swedish models and whomever has been sent up to try to halt proceedings.

Part Two

Too drunk to effectively resist, the three coppers capture him and transport him back to Britain though he manages to sabotage the one carrying him, Dennis, from the inside and crashes in a field. He quickly analyses his kidnappers as being made from copper with a high-grade Animatum Spiritum complex metal frame powered by a ghost battery.

Part Three

Unable to find out who is behind the conspiracy, Dandridge goes to an old pub he used to frequent where he meets an old friend for the first time since his death.  He finds out from Chelsea Tommy that their is a special delivery at a nearby warehouse, but discovers the head of Shelley in a box.

Part Four

Dandridge is set upon by the coppers, and is aided by the body of Shelley, which erupts from a nearby create, sans head. With the fight over, Dandridge explores the van and finds more coppers in the back. Unlike the robotic coppers, these are supernatural automata which have been filled with concentrated ectoplasm.

Dandridge rewires one of the robotic coppers and disguises Shelley and himself (with Shelley's head remaining disembodied) so that it can drive the van back to its home base. This turns out to be a disguised underground factory underneath a Little Eater motorway service station. The factory contains ramshackle maintenance droids, an ectoplasm assembly line and the Blade of Oberon.

Dandridge decides that he doesn't have enough time to sew Shelley's head back on to his body.  As a consequence of this, the copper head is controlled remotely to attack Dandridge.

Part Five

Master Beta, the controller of the coppers captured him and explained the plan to drain his savoir fu in order to marshal the people of the people of Britain without complaint.

Part Six

Shelley managed to pogo his disembodied head using it's vertebrae towards his body.

While he began to carry out his plan, Beta explained how his mother had always been disappointed by him, and that he had accepted the government position in an underground laboratory to escape her ghost. Dandridge realised that she was the Wailing Widow of Wemberley Common who had been exorcised recently.

With this, Dandridge convinced Beta to halt his plan, return to the outside world and write musicals.  To this effect he destroyed the controller but before he could release Dandridge and return his jacket and the dagger, Shelley arrived to attempt to rescue him. Instead he killed Beta with the Blade of Oberon, overloading the facility.

Part Seven

The Coppers activated and started to arrest and detain people on the streets of London. Dandridge revealed to Angela that they would become lethal within five minutes. He used his goggles to tune to the Copper's etheric frequency and spot the first host copper while Shelley appropriated the Little Eater blimp.

The two land on the roof of a Lewton Buses coach which the copper's (including the host) had used to take some motorists into custody. Shelley takes the steering wheel though is decapitated in the process.

Part Eight

As the corrupted ectoplasm turns read and on the verge of the five hundred coppers overheating Dandridge managed to throw the leader under the axle of the coach though loses the Blade of Oberon.

Shelley arrives, pogoing and with the blade in his mouth. As Dandridge was surrounded, Shelley pierced the host copper, deactivating all five hundred coppers.

In the aftermath, the Prime Minister faced angry crowds outside the Commons, though didn't seem overly concerned.

Chelsea Tommy broke the terms of his licence and asked Dandridge to use the Blade upon him before Ecto-Revenue could catch up with him. Moments later Angela claimed the the weapon.

Locations featured

• Camden - an unnamed biker bar
• The French Riviera
• Cannes
• Monte Carlo
• Records Department
• The Ash Tree, a pub
• Little Eater
• The Lamb and Flag, a pub (referred to)
• Wemberley Common (referred to)
• Tartarus (referred to)
• Cheyne Walk

Characters

• Dr Spartacus Dandridge
• Miss Angela Blake
• Shelley
• Roger Moore (mentioned)
• The Sultan of Brunei (mentioned)
• Inga, a Swedish model
• Anita, a Swedish model
• Dennis / The Fat Man / Number One, a copper
• Number Two, a copper
• Number Three, a copper
• Chelsea Tommy
• The Wailing Widow of Wemberley Common (referred to)
• Master Beta, a government scientist
• Number Five, a copper with a speech impediment (deceased).
• Prime Minister Nicholas Wheatley

Items

• Blade of Oberon
• Metamorphic Jacket
• Roger Moore's Bentley
• Hot air balloon
• Ghost battery
• Runic binding tape
• Wollstonecraft's Self-Stitching Thread

Entities featured

• Interview (fictional magazine)
• Bonhomie (fictional magazine)
• H.M. Ecto-Revenue.
• Musical monthly (fictional magazine)
• Radio Times (real world magazine, mentioned)
• Evening Examiner (fictional newspaper)